Legends of Windemere

So . . . Be right with everyone.  *watches son run back up the stairs for more toys and wonders what happened to his breakfast*  It’s going to be one of those days, but that’s par for the course this week.

Let’s start with Crossing Bedlam.  It got into the 50,000 rankings for a bit, but has stayed in the 100,000 region for the most part.  No Top 100 Lists and it’s only had 9 sales as of this writing.  The promo stuff is still coming out and I’m tweeting it alongside Mercenary Prince.  Some people have given their opinions on why it hasn’t taken off like Windemere.  Others have suggested that being a new series, it has to reach 3 books before it does anything amazing.  I’m actually rather confused here because it felt like I did the pre-release hype better than I usually do.  Then again, I’m probably also used to coming out of the gate stronger than this and I could be looking at what is supposed to happen when you start a new indie series.  Keep in mind, Beginning of a Hero exploded on me soon after I released it and I never figured out why.  All I was told is that it wasn’t common, especially in fantasy.  As far as Bedlam goes, it’s been suggested that this is more of a male-oriented story and that might have to be taken into account.

This does bring up the question of if I should do a sequel.  I’ve routed one from Texas to Florida and am setting up encounters.  The ideas are flowing and I really love the world and characters.  Yet, there’s that issue of viability that I comes to mind and makes me feel dirty.  I love writing because I have fun and it makes me happy.  Yet, the current situation (i.e.- My wife still can’t find work and keeps getting the rug ripped out from underneath her.) means I don’t have a lot of funds to work with.  Legends of Windemere is already established.  Crossing Bedlam isn’t.  Yet, I don’t want to be the author who has a great idea that he tosses aside.  Especially since I came up with such a great plot outline for the sequel:

“The Jeep gets stolen.  Cassidy gets pissed.  Lloyd is along for the fun.”

I guess we’ll see what happens when reviews start coming in.  If they do since I have no control over that.

Beyond all that, this week was Winter Break for the kid.  I spent the first half with a really bad cold and recovered in time for Thursday.  The plan was to take my son to a ‘Free Play’ thing at a nearby fun zone type of thing.  Got there 5 minutes after it opened and couldn’t even get into the parking lot.  Birthday party.  Same with the place across the street that had ‘Free Play’.  So I drove off to another place that had something like this and found ‘Max Capacity’.  Dang it.  Well there was a little carousel that he could ride for 50 cents . . . I only had 25 cents.  Going to the desk for change would make the kid think we were going inside, so we trudged back to the Target parking lot.  He got a plush Woodstock out of the whole thing.

Plus side is that Friday went better:

That is a Plush Deadpool and Plush Woodstock in his hand

Before you say anything, we saw ‘Kung Fu Panda 3’.  A lot of fun and he had a blast.  He does know who Deadpool is, but is also aware that it is a ‘Mommy/Daddy Superhero’ and he isn’t old enough yet.

Other than all that, I finished editing The Spirit Well, which I hope will be out this December.  This means I cleared the way and have things in my head to start writing Book 13: Ritual of the Lost Lamb.  This is going to be a tough one because the system has changed a few times on it.  Best way to explain things is that the champions got a kick to the face and they’re trying to recover.  It’s actually been nearly 3 months since I wrote a new novel.  Reminds me that I need to find a time to put that Ichabod Brooks story up here.  Might do it after Tribe of the Snow Tiger comes out since I have March posts prepped and that book might be April.  Sorry about the rapid fire releases, but I’m feeling like my time is running out.

What are the goals for this week?

1. Start writing Ritual of the Lost Lamb.
2. Finish doing early prep for Chasing Bedlam.
3. Laundry.
4. See if I can jump start Crossing Bedlam.
5. Get back into biking because it simply didn’t happen this week.
6. Watch more ‘Falling Skies’.
7. Tomorrow is day with the kid, so #2 might be done if he’s playing on his own.